The Baseball Reliquary presents “Legacies: Baseball from Flatbush to the City of Angels,” an evening of music, theatre, comedy, and performance art looking at the Dodgers’ historic move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, on Sunday, August 15, 2004 at 8:00 pm at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood, California. The emcee will be comedian Elayne Boosler, with featured performers to include Culture Clash, Heather Woodbury, Dan Kwong, Sue Raney with Carmen Fanzone, Byron Motley, Ross Altman, and Dodger organist Nancy Bea Hefley. And, as is usually the custom with Baseball Reliquary events, the audience can expect surprise guest appearances! 

           Admission is $20.00, with full-time students and children 12 and under $12.00. For ticket information and reservations, phone the Ford Amphitheatre at (323) 461-3673 or visit www.fordamphitheatre.org. For program information, phone the Baseball Reliquary at (626) 791-7647.
            This event is made possible in part by grants from the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the City of Los Angeles, Cultural Affairs Department.

 THE PROGRAM

            In 1958, Walter O’Malley moved the beloved Dodgers baseball team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in what proved to be perhaps the most controversial franchise shift in professional sports history. The westward move of the Dodgers was a watershed for baseball, heralding an unprecedented growth in the business aspects of the national pastime, but also triggering deep emotional reaction on both coasts. To the borough of Brooklyn, the Dodgers had come to symbolize the hopes and aspirations of its citizens, and the team’s departure was nothing less than a tragedy, a destruction of a culture, which left a lasting residue of resentment still felt today. And in Los Angeles, a relatively young and still evolving city, a contentious and ideological battle erupted over Chavez Ravine, the Mexican-American neighborhood designated as the site for the new Dodger Stadium.

            Although the story is a complicated one and has reached almost mythic proportions in its retellings, “Legacies: Baseball from Flatbush to the City of Angels” is unique in its presentation of artists’ views of the move of the Dodgers and the relationship of baseball to community and to American social and cultural history.

 THE PERFORMERS

            The emcee for the evening, in charge of umpiring this extraordinary montage of performances, will be ELAYNE BOOSLER, one of the busiest and most popular comedians touring the country today. Now based in Los Angeles, Boosler was born in Brooklyn right around the time the Dodgers were leaving, and she vividly recalls her first memories were of seeing “grown men cry.” A frequent guest at Dodger Stadium for “Hollywood Stars Night,” Boosler has thrown out the first pitch and sung the National Anthem at stadiums across the country, in addition to performing at charity events for many baseball teams. The host of "Balderdash," the PAX TV network’s new game show, Boosler founded Tails of Joy, a nonprofit corporation which promotes rescue of dogs, cats, and companion animals throughout the United States. For this event, Boosler is donating her fee to this important rescue organization.
 

           The theatrical portion of the show will include CULTURE CLASH, which, for over 20 years, has been storming America’s stages as the nation’s premiere Chicano/Latino performance trio. Comprised of Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Siguenza, Culture Clash will perform excerpts from Chavez Ravine, their acclaimed play which leaves no stone unturned — from Walter O’Malley to Dodger Dogs — in its examination of the history behind the displacement of the Mexican-American community to make way for the arrival of the Dodgers nearly half a century ago.
            “Stand-up novelist” HEATHER WOODBURY is a writer and solo performer who has created her own unique theatrical experience, described by one critic as having “the scale of a Dickens novel and the melodrama of a soap opera.” Woodbury will perform excerpts from Tale of 2Cities: An American Joyride on Multiple Tracks, a bi-coastal project which interweaves multiple characters and story lines in its examination of the Dodgers’ move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and its contemporary reverberations in terms of the loss of home and community and the disappearance of buildings, sites, and local identity. Woodbury has received both a playwrights fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and an award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays for Tale of 2Cities. . . ., and has previously performed excerpts at the Brooklyn Public Library, the “Baseball as America” exhibition at the Museum of Natural History in New York, and the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York.

Heather Woodbury

Hailed by critics as “a master storyteller,” DAN KWONG will perform his latest solo work, Dodgertown, a tale of true devotion to the home team and a surprising vision at the ballpark. Kwong’s work draws largely upon his own life experiences to explore the personal and historical through storytelling, multimedia, poetry, and music. One of Los Angeles’ most creative voices, Kwong has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation. His works, known for their keen insight, dynamic physicality, and generous sense of humor, often incorporate baseball references and themes, such as his earlier solo performance, Secrets of the Samurai Centerfielder.
            The musical aspect of the program will include a vocalist who is widely considered one of the finest interpreters of the great jazz standards, SUE RANEY, who has recorded countless albums and sung with such renowned bandleaders as Nelson Riddle, Stan Kenton, Michel Legrand, and Henry Mancini. A lifelong baseball fan, Raney developed an added passion for the game with her marriage to former Chicago Cubs infielder Carmen Fanzone, an accomplished musician in his own right. For this occasion, Raney will be accompanied by a trio, featuring Carmen Fanzone on fluegelhorn, in singing a couple of haunting ballads of years gone by and innocence lost, Dave Frishberg’s “Dodger Blue” and Joe Raposo’s “There Used to be a Ballpark;” the latter tune  gained some popularity when recorded by Frank Sinatra in the 1970s.
            Another of the Dodger “legacies” is the franchise’s role as a pioneer of diversity in major league baseball, best represented by the signing of Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball’s “color line” in 1947 at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field. The significance of this “legacy” to American social history and to the civil rights movement will be recalled in musical performances by Byron Motley and Ross Altman. A singer-songwriter, “discovered” by Cleo Laine, BYRON MOTLEY has performed and recorded with such artists as Natalie Cole, Patti Austin, and Barry Manilow. Motley inherited his love of baseball from his father, who was an umpire in the Negro Leagues, and his acclaimed one-man show, The Man, the Myths, the Music & Me, intertwines one hundred years of popular African-American music with the lives of such baseball legends as Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Robinson. For this evening’s program, Motley will perform the 1949 classic, “Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?,” and other tunes associated with that historic era in New York. 

           Further elucidating Jackie Robinson’s role as one of the most important social figures in 20th century American history, political activist and folksinger ROSS ALTMAN will perform an original composition dedicated to the former Brooklyn Dodger great. Writing in traditions ranging from Woody Guthrie to Tom Paxton, Altman has composed songs on virtually all political topics over the last 20 years and has shared the stage with such legends as Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Sam Hinton, and Johnny Walker.
            And representing that nearly extinct species, the ballpark organist, will be Los Angeles’ very own NANCY BEA HEFLEY, the Dodger organist for the past 18 years. With over two thousand songs in her repertoire, Hefley will entertain the audience during and after the show with a selection of her favorite tunes, including songs associated with New York and Los Angeles.

 TICKET INFORMATION

            For tickets, log on to www.fordamphitheatre.org or call the Ford Box Office at 323 GO 1-FORD (461-3673).
            The Ford Amphitheatre is located at 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, off the 101 Hollywood Freeway across from the Hollywood Bowl and south of Universal Studios. The Ford is disabled accessible. Portable wireless listening devices are available upon request. The Ford offers a number of dining options: a variety of food and beverages is available on site and box dinners for evening events may be ordered in advance. Picknicking is encouraged.
            On-site, stacked parking costs $5 per vehicle for evening shows and $3 per vehicle for morning family shows. Satellite parking serviced by FREE shuttles to the Ford is available at:
            1) Universal City Metro Station at Lankershim Blvd. and Campo de Cahuenga in the “kiss and ride” area. Parking is free in the Metro Station lot.
            2) Cherokee parking structure at 1718 North Cherokee, just north of Hollywood Blvd., 1.3 miles from the Ford. Parking costs $3 with validation available at the Ford.
            The event is part of the Ford Amphitheatre 2004 Season, a multi-disciplinary arts series produced by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission in cooperation with Los Angeles County-based arts organizations. For a complete season schedule, directions to the theater and parking information, log on to www.fordamphitheatre.org.

~ This event is not endosed by Major League Baseball ~